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Chicago, IL - On 30 September, approximately a dozen members of the Palestine Solidarity Group-Chicago (PSG) and supporters picketed the World Fashion Chicago event hosted by Chicago Sister Cities International at the Harris Theater in downtown Millennium Park. Activists gathered under the slogan "Israeli apartheid is so unfashionable! Petach Tikva is no sister of Chicago!"

After distributing to fashion show attendees and passersby information about PSG's campaign to drop the Israeli city of Petach Tikva from the Chicago Sister Cities International program, activists shouted "Drop! Drop! Israel from sister cities!" while the fashion show started.

PSG's ongoing campaign to drop Petach Tikva is part of the wider global movement in support of the Palestinian civil socity call for boycott, divestment and sanctions on Israel until it ends its occupation of Palestinian lands and respects Palestinians' right of self-determination and the right of return of Palestinian refugees.

Petach Tikva, known in Israel as the "mother of settlements," is the first Jewish-exclusive settlement built in Palestine on the land previously owned by the Palestinians of Mlabbes village. Today, it is the home of one of the largest interrogation and detention centers in Israel. It is well documented that Palestinian detainees are routinely tortured and detained indefinitely without facing charges in Petach Tikva -- not unlike the conditions at Guantanamo.

PSG has previously protested the inclusion of Petach Tikva in the sister cities program by picketing the mayor's breakfast for the program last February during the Israeli massacres in Gaza, as well as the Sister Cities International Festival in June of this summer. A letter expressing PSG's demand to drop Petach Tikva was delivered to Mayor Daley's office and the Chicago Sister Cities International office (read the text at: psgchicago.org/)

psgchicago.org/